Author: giorgio gherardi

Milan is the Italian city that has grown more vertically through the construction of skyscrapers. Currently, there are 25 completed and under construction buildings that stand at least 100 mt.. My favourite ones are the Unicredit tower, in the Porta Nuova district, and the Isozaki and Hadid towers, in the citylife district. These latter are also called “il dritto” (the straight) and “lo storto” (the awry). I am showing some pictures I have taken in the last few days. The Unicredit Tower is seen with the famous “bosco verticale” building in the beautiful frame of the new garden area built up around the “biblioteca degli alberi” (trees library). November sky in Milan is typically grey-white and looks homogeneous, not the best sky for a picture, but there are nice autumn colours on the leafs of trees and in the few flowers on the ground.

Verona Antiquaria is a local antiques city market which is held on the first Sundays of each month in the beautiful San Zeno square in a historical neighborhood of the City.
The Antique Market boasts about 50 dealers with only fine antiques & collectibles, such as furniture, glassware, pottery, vintage clothing, estate jewelry, books, coins, war memorabilia, stamps, nautical antiques, display items, lighting & lamps, dolls, doll house items, religious, reference books, and more. It is open all the day long and It takes at least two to three hours to visit.

How much the urban landscape has been changed by images of advertisement is impressive. In the last few days a huge poster has been set up on the building which is in front of the tower named “il grattacielo di Milano” in via Vittor Pisani. The image is a beautiful, enormous, woman’s profile portrait on a completely white background. She seems to be looking at and admiring the tower. The grattacielo (“skyscraper”) is 116 meters tall and it was built between 1950 and 1955. At that time, it was the highest building in Italy, higher than the highest statue of the Duomo church. The grattacielo is the symbol of the new architectural Milanese style which was developed immediately after the end of world war II. Its design is very simple and essential. There seems to be an interaction between the model’s face and the tower. Looking at them together from Piazza della Repubblica gives an awesome visual effect.

Nowadays, it is fairly common to see people looking at the screen of their smartphone while standing or walking in the street, or sitting in a bus or a train. They read or text messages, or view images or videos. Photographs are taken of everything and they contribute to a representation of one’s life in social media. Real life is increasingly perceived through the screen of electronic devices and we are taking pictures rather than living in the moment. As an experiment I tried to insert in a wide-angle photo the image of the screen of a smartphone. The focus is taken onto the phone thus the rest of the image is blurred. The picture as a whole induces a sort of surreality in the scene. This is somewhat like our new way of living: real things are only what we want to see through our technological devices. The rest of vision is blurred and out of focus because of our lack of interest on what is outside the screen.

A huge spot dedicated to street art has been opened in Paris in 54, rue de l’Evangile. It is called L’Aerosol and is located in a former shed of the SNCF. It is a true temple of street art that invites you to discover a colorful universe featuring a promising programming and many animations for children and adults. The place will be open until late January 2018. It has an outside space where walls are covered in ephemeral artworks, or there are walls still blank that other artists will come to cover up because this is how street art goes. In the inside there are additional walls painted illuminated by gorgeous lamps. Pictures taken on november 11th, 2017.

This is a selection of shots taken in the entrance of the undergroud station “Repubblica” in Milano, which is close to the main railway station. Urban redevolpment has been obtained by painting the formerly gray and dirty walls of the stairs. The mural paintings (murales) and graffiti are beautiful. Several other subway station in Milano have already been decorated by mural paintings. Pictures were taken using a fisheye lens to obtain the widest view in rather narrow spaces.

Misterious people hidden behind colorful carnival dresses and masks. Pictures taken on Saturday morning (“sabato grasso”) in the last weekend of the carnival season in the narrow streets of Venice and in Piazza San Marco. I prefer portraits or wide angle photos. Venice is a very unique place.